ATG Oly Squat Question

actionjeff · September 25, 2008, 7:07pm

[quote]Hanley wrote:
The first set of front squats (in the white tee) looked ok, but you’re soft as hell at the bottom. The first few reps you look like you’re about to fold in half. It looks like you’re tryna catch a bounce on the later reps, but you’re going about it totally wrong. You’re just slamming straight into the ground.

The second round of front squats weren’t as good. You’re breaking at the knees too early, and your stance looks a little wide.

With the back squats you’re breaking way too early at the knees. I’m not saying you should do a GM and then drop into the squat, but breaking at the same time’s good.

As for “knees out”. Your knees should stay over your feet. Pretty simple really. If you’ve an ultra wide stance, you really need to push your knees out hard to keep them over your feet. If you’re squatting with shoulder stance, not so much.[/quote]

thanks a lot. Soft at the bottom= not tight? and pushing at the knees even with a normal stance would be a way to activate the hips? I’ve never tried this by pushing forward, just out. Never thought to tbh.

You’re right, the second FS look crappy. I just added them because that’s all I’ve got on here.

I’ve never actually had anyone who did full squats look at my form, so this is probably a good idea.

I’ll take an updated video by next weekend and see how it compares

fyi when I rack a full clean, I usually end up in a position like in the 2nd set, kind of accidently too wide, but I’ve working on it.

Modi · September 26, 2008, 12:07am

[quote]Hanley wrote:
As for “knees out”. Your knees should stay over your feet. Pretty simple really. If you’ve an ultra wide stance, you really need to push your knees out hard to keep them over your feet. If you’re squatting with shoulder stance, not so much.[/quote]

Thanks Hanley, this is the concept I was trying to get across.

Modi · September 26, 2008, 12:24am

[quote]actionjeff wrote:
Jimmy the Saint wrote:
I am a bit confused and don’t understand the difference. as I’ve been told to push the knees out, but doesn’t that automatically mean pushing them further to the side than the toes, or slightly bowlegged?

Don’t think of it as a “push the knees out” concept. Try to “rip the floor apart with your feet”. This might help to activate the hips, which could better stabilize your kneeswhen coming out of the hole…

that’s interesting. I can’t really conceptualize what you mean but I’ll give it a try

so, should the knees be getting pushed out more to the side than the toes or not, at any point? lol

maybe I worry too much, but when you can squat 30kg less than your max and still have the same form breakdown problem, I think it’s worth delving into!

[/quote]

No, the knees don’t need to be pushed outside of the toes.

Spreading the floor is a good concept. It really is a matter of more than just pushing the knees out.

The wider the stance, the more angled out your feet will be, and the more angled out the knee will be as well. The narrower the stance, the more straight ahead your feet will face, and your knees will track in line with the toes (therefore not forced out as much).

There will be a fairly optimal angle for your feet based on how wide your stance is, and your knees want to track in line with your feet regardless. If you look down when you are squatting, regardless of width, your knees should be in the same plane as your feet.

You should be able to draw a line from your hips to your feet, and your knee should fall along that line throughout the lift.

If your knee falls to the inside of the line, you are putting excessive stress on the structures on the medial side of the knee (inside), and if your knee falls to the outside of the line, you are putting excessive stress on the structures on the lateral side of the knee (outside).

The biggest difference is that if your knee is pushed too far to the inside, your knee could cave in or buckle and tear a lot of structures (MCL, medial meniscus, even ACL).

If its pushed too far to the outside, it’s much less likely to buckle, and will probable just result in an inefficient lift rather than a serious injury.

actionjeff · September 26, 2008, 12:53am

I get it!

I now think the tiny twinge in my knee may have actually been from the cue to push the knees way out, something I had not done before

any recommendations on building strength to keep the knees from moving in on heavy attempts? I’m gonna try the whole spreading the floor/pushing the knees out (but not to the side) and see how it feels after I get back into the states

cheers guys, great info

elih8er · September 26, 2008, 8:46pm

You are really over thinking this. From the front squat your knee comes in suggesting your stance is too wide and your body is trying to find the optimal path to apply force.

If you think about jamming your heels into the floor as hard as you can when coming up the knees will not move inward solving the problem. Someone said this earlier. You need to think about smashing with your heels like your snuffin a giant fucking dung beetle or something.

I train with one of the top female lifters in the country and probable 2012 olympic team member. If you watch her squat her knees come in as well on some lifts and many people would cringe. But, that is how her body does it after 10 years of training. Does she have knee problems? Nope. Has she ever? Nope.

Also why do you look at the floor? Rest assured, it is still there when you are doing the lift. You need to look straight ahead or slightly up with your head not your eyes. Where the head goes the rest of the thoracic spine follows…

Hanley · September 26, 2008, 9:26pm

[quote]elih8er wrote:
You are really over thinking this.[/quote]

That’s all you need to know tbh.

But the rest is good, so it stays!!

[quote] From the front squat your knee comes in suggesting your stance is too wide and your body is trying to find the optimal path to apply force.

If you think about jamming your heels into the floor as hard as you can when coming up the knees will not move inward solving the problem. Someone said this earlier. You need to think about

I train with one of the top female lifters in the country and probable 2012 olympic team member. If you watch her squat her knees come in as well on some lifts and many people would cringe.

But, that is how her body does it after 10 years of training. Does she have knee problems? Nope. Has she ever? Nope.

Also why do you look at the floor? Rest assured, it is still there when you are doing the lift. You need to look straight ahead or slightly up with your head not your eyes. Where the head goes the rest of the thoracic spine follows… [/quote]

EDIT: I was actually talking with a guy about the gym in this and he suffered from the exact same problem. He’d read about pushing his knees out, and keeping a wide stance because that’s what all the big multiply lifters were doing.

Problem was, he was pushing his knees TOO far out (they were well outside his feet) and his stance was too wide for a raw lifter. He didn’t have the glutes and ham’s to pull it off.

I told him to take it in a bit and stop concentrating on pushing his knees out so much, the result was several PR’s over the last few weeks.

actionjeff · September 26, 2008, 9:36pm

elih8er,

I think that was just random because it was light weight. I do always try to look up, except in OHS. Like I said that’s 4or 5 months old. I’m maxing about 20kg heavier now, but the knee issue still existed (although everything is slightly different)

I actually don’t think I was over-thinking it Hanley. I actually never realized that when people meant to push the knees out, that they meant OUT, not out to the side.

I imagine the knees caving in is just some strength discrepancy that has developed, so I’ll tone down the weight a little and squat with perfect form + some unilateral work.

I’ll get you guys that video by next weekend. I’m gonna be in London for a week. I hear the food is god awful, so I’m going to need a lot of alcohol to balance it out.

elih8er · September 26, 2008, 9:48pm

Don’t even worry about pushing with the knees etc. Let’s do a little experiment without even using any weight:
Stand up and bend at the knee, relax and bring your knee in. Pretty easy?

Do the same, but jam heel into the ground as hard you can. Now, try and bring your knee in… it should barely move.

swivel · September 26, 2008, 9:57pm

like hanley said you’re wicked soft and lose whatever arch you had at the bottom and then allowing the weight to come front of center -don’t go rock bottom if it means losing that tightness and weight position !

you’ve either not enough strength/flexi to stay tight to the bottom, or you’re not trying hard enough to stay tight… only go as deep as you can keep the weight centered and hold your arch. get that and the knees will take care of themselves.

actionjeff · September 27, 2008, 12:30am

if you’re saying I round, I disagree

but I guess I’ll look into how tight I am and try to focus on that. I’m 100% more flexible now than when I took that video. I can go atg any stance mostly upright without rounding.

It’s probably just not staying tight…

You are saying the weight is coming forward?

hanley,

the BS look good other than the knee break thing you mentioned?

Hanley · September 27, 2008, 9:22am

[quote]actionjeff wrote:
if you’re saying I round, I disagree

but I guess I’ll look into how tight I am and try to focus on that. I’m 100% more flexible now than when I took that video. I can go atg any stance mostly upright without rounding.

It’s probably just not staying tight…

You are saying the weight is coming forward?

hanley,

the BS look good other than the knee break thing you mentioned?[/quote]

On the front squats, at the bottom you are rounding. It’s not because you’re weak, or inflexible, it’s just because the weight is crushing you at the bottom, and as a result it’s going forward and your chest is dropping.

You’ll get away with it for so long, but eventually it’s gonna lead to you missing lifts. And that’s a problem that’s only gonna get worse as you start to do heavier cleans unless you correct it now.

I can’t really offer any solutions other than staying tight and concentrating on not letting it happen tho, cos it’s a problem I suffer from on cleans too.

The BS looked grand. I would personally say that your upper body looked really loose. The bar just seemed to be sitting there, not like you were making any direct effort to lock everything together and get some good drive from your entire back.

I worked so hard on getting a tight position when I squat that it’s geuinely uncomfortable getting unde the bar, and it needs to have at least 100kg on it or I can’t set up properly because I dig myself in so hard.

It might seemt trivial, or you might think it doesn’t apply because you’re training to be aweightlifter, but a tight up body when squatting is still mega important.

Yoda_x · September 27, 2008, 4:09pm

I didn’t read the entire threat, but I’m pretty much 100% sure that you just need to work on activating your glutes throughout the whole squat, especially where your knees cave in.

Activating the glutes = pushing your knees out to some extent since that’s a huge part of what the the glutes do. I had that problem but with both knees and this fixed me up (after a long time of learning to activate the glutes properly).

actionjeff · September 27, 2008, 6:50pm

[quote]Yoda-x wrote:
I didn’t read the entire threat, but I’m pretty much 100% sure that you just need to work on activating your glutes throughout the whole squat, especially where your knees cave in.

Activating the glutes = pushing your knees out to some extent since that’s a huge part of what the the glutes do. I had that problem but with both knees and this fixed me up (after a long time of learning to activate the glutes properly).[/quote]

yeah, when I first started squatting I didn’t even feel it in the glutes and hips. That came in maybe 5-6 months ago. When I was pushing the knees way out to the side, I was way weaker, but my glutes were fried the next day. I don’t know if that’s the case with a normal “good” squat or not anymore, and I’d have to try it out and see in the near future. I also don’t feel it in my quads much because they’re so used to high volume that they don’t really get sore.

[quote]Hanley wrote:
actionjeff wrote:
if you’re saying I round, I disagree

but I guess I’ll look into how tight I am and try to focus on that. I’m 100% more flexible now than when I took that video. I can go atg any stance mostly upright without rounding.

It’s probably just not staying tight…

You are saying the weight is coming forward?

hanley,

the BS look good other than the knee break thing you mentioned?

On the front squats, at the bottom you are rounding. It’s not because you’re weak, or inflexible, it’s just because the weight is crushing you at the bottom, and as a result it’s going forward and your chest is dropping.

You’ll get away with it for so long, but eventually it’s gonna lead to you missing lifts. And that’s a problem that’s only gonna get worse as you start to do heavier cleans unless you correct it now.

I can’t really offer any solutions other than staying tight and concentrating on not letting it happen tho, cos it’s a problem I suffer from on cleans too.

The BS looked grand. I would personally say that your upper body looked really loose. The bar just seemed to be sitting there, not like you were making any direct effort to lock everything together and get some good drive from your entire back.

I worked so hard on getting a tight position when I squat that it’s geuinely uncomfortable getting unde the bar, and it needs to have at least 100kg on it or I can’t set up properly because I dig myself in so hard.

It might seemt trivial, or you might think it doesn’t apply because you’re training to be aweightlifter, but a tight up body when squatting is still mega important.[/quote]

alright, awesome. I think it’s possible I need to work on the flexibility in the rack position as well and that will let me keep the chest up. I also definitely don’t try to keep the upper back tight or anything, maybe my mid/lower traps are weak and I just need to practice it

it definitely applies.

I also plan to do some PL on the side for fun, like I said one of my friends who trains is a pretty solid PL who’s lifting about your #s as a 165 =). My deadlift is really good right now, but my squat needs a lot of work!

I’ll get that vid up later, thanks for the help guys, very good info. I’m out to go eat some awful London food!

Hanley · September 27, 2008, 8:58pm

[quote]actionjeff wrote:
Yoda-x wrote:
I didn’t read the entire threat, but I’m pretty much 100% sure that you just need to work on activating your glutes throughout the whole squat, especially where your knees cave in.

Activating the glutes = pushing your knees out to some extent since that’s a huge part of what the the glutes do. I had that problem but with both knees and this fixed me up (after a long time of learning to activate the glutes properly).

yeah, when I first started squatting I didn’t even feel it in the glutes and hips. That came in maybe 5-6 months ago. When I was pushing the knees way out to the side, I was way weaker, but my glutes were fried the next day. I don’t know if that’s the case with a normal “good” squat or not anymore, and I’d have to try it out and see in the near future. I also don’t feel it in my quads much because they’re so used to high volume that they don’t really get sore.

Hanley wrote:
actionjeff wrote:
if you’re saying I round, I disagree